"If you think that it's pretentious, you've been taken for a ride"
Genres: Progressive rock, Art rock, New wave, Pop
Recording decades: 1960s - 1990s
Classic Lineup:
Peter Gabriel - vocals, flute (until 1975)
Steve Hackett - guitar (until 1977)
Tony Banks - keys
Mike Rutherford - bass, guitar
Phil Collins - drums, vocals
Quintessential album: A Trick of the Tail
Favorite album: Selling England by the Pound
When someone mentions the name “Genesis”, in a context that is understood to be non-biblical, the first connotation is one of two possibilities. Either the person thinks “wildly successful pop band with Phil Collins and that guy from Mike & the Mechanics”, or they think “foundational prog band that underwent radioactive decay until stabilizing as said pop band” (and hey, “pop band” is even abbreviated as Pb!). Of course, both ideas are correct, but the tension between the old Peter Gabriel-led prog era and the Phil Collins pop era will always be the elephant in the room when discussing Genesis, so I’m just acknowledging that first.
I must also come right out and admit that I’m a much bigger fan of the prog era than of the pop era, so don’t hold your breath for me to be the one to finally vindicate you for loving We Can’t Dance; but I’ll make every reasonable effort to defend the best moments of their pop career too, because all Genesis albums have great moments of top-tier songwriting. What I won’t do is gloss over the main problem I have with this band regardless of era: the monotony that threatens to creep in any time Tony Banks is audible and the singer isn't.
While I’m not quite a virulent synth-hater, I do have trouble with songs that make synths the center of their sound, and that's a common enough practice in Genesis to be a mark against them. As far as I'm concerned, most of Genesis’ instrumental intrigue left in the mid-70s with Steve Hackett; and since his emotional, hymn-like playing wasn't always front and center in the first place, even the best Genesis albums have some irritating or dull passages that feel like a slog. They may have embraced the form of prog (long, complex, narrative songs, weird time signatures, experimentation with genres, etc.), but the execution sometimes lagged when the intricate framework was not propped up by dynamic instrumental work, which means the vocalist has to do a lot of work to carry things along.
Fortunately, both Genesis vocalists are spectacular. Peter Gabriel's rich, emotive voice is perfect for the surreal and fantastical worlds the band would devise in their prog era, and Phil Collins would do almost as well on the mic as they transitioned, slowly but surely, to pop and new wave. The spirit of Genesis, if you will, is a warm, friendly, almost personal illustration in a pastoral and “painterly” style, entirely at home in a picture book or a story from a local at the pub. And yes, that applies whether we're talking about a Collins-era song about an affair or a Gabriel-era tale about giant killer hogweeds. How often can you say that about a band that plays 20-minute epics?
Of course, I'm still a huge fan of Genesis, even in spite of the complaints I listed above. I only criticize because I care! This is a fascinating band, and their metamorphosis from prog to pop is a fair demonstration of how to effect such a change successfully, in both the artistic sense and the commercial one. Now, if only Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett would do a joint tour around here…
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